Jay Busbee

No, it's not a list of the cars collected in either of the surprisingly large accidents on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. It's a list of the mean Fahrenheit temperatures of this date at the track over the last five years. And since Jimmie Johnson ran a race that offered very little reason for question, we turn our attention to this: why on earth is there a race in Atlanta on the first day of March?

All right, fine, we'll give Johnson his due: his victory in the nobly-aimed, awkwardly-named Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 is the 71st of his career. He's eighth on the all-time wins list, now only five behind Dale Earnhardt. He's one point off the Cup standings lead behind Joey Logano, and he's almost surely punched his ticket into the Chase. He started 38th thanks to Friday's qualifying debacle, and even so managed to weave right through the field and lead 92 of the race's 325 laps.

These are dark days in the city of Chicago, friends. Derrick Rose is down, and he might not be getting up again for awhile.

When Rose was good, he was unstoppable. But injuries have robbed him of much of his game, and he's in real danger of joining the company of other athletes with spectacular ceilings brought low by injury. Tiger Woods, Bo Jackson, Grant Hill, Mickey Mantle, Anfernee Hardaway ... these are just a few of the many players who seemed to have limitless potential but spent too much time on the DL.

To talk of Rose and other matters relating to the NBA, we first spoke with Inside the NBA's Kenny Smith. Topics include:

• Kenny on the Derrick Rose injury, and what it means to the Bulls (1:25 mark)

• Kenny's picks for the NBA Finals at this moment (5:13 mark)

• Recollections of Dean Smith (10:25 mark)

• After Kenny wraps, we talk the injuries that shortened or altered the careers of other famous players, including Bo Jackson, Tiger Woods, Mickey Mantle, and Anfernee Hardaway. Will Rose join the company of what-ifs? (11:30 mark)

There is a sports curse on certain cities. We believe that as surely as we believe that certain franchises are doomed to fail no matter how many stars they overpay. And if you happen to live in one of these cities, you watch from afar as towns like Boston stack up rings across all sports, so many that their fans lose count. You see cities like Pittsburgh, where one team rises up to take the place of another that's fallen. And then you see San Antonio — freaking San Antonio! — winning title after title with its lone pro team, which is like winning at roulette even when you've forgotten to clear your chips off the table.

So which cities most deserve to win a title? Which cities have suffered the most in waiting and hoping for a championship? We decided to run down the top contenders, and we gave our top two choices in the video above. Below, you'll see the rest of the lineup.

____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

With the news that the Cleveland Browns have created a "new" logo in the most Cleveland way possible, we decided to take a look at the best and worst of the NFL's current crop of logos. Do you prefer the classic style of the Green Bay Packers or the Chicago Bears, or are you a fan of the newer styles like the Seattle Seahawks and Jacksonville Jaguars? We run down four of the best and five of the worst right here, and friend, we sure hope yours isn't among the worst.

____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

Welcome to the latest Shutdown Corner podcast! On today's faster-than-a-40-yard-dash episode, we break down the combine with our men-on-the-scene Frank Schwab and Eric Edholm. Topics include: • Jameis Winston vs. Marcus Mariota: who ya got? (0:40 mark) • If a player screwed up at the combine, what are his options? (12:55 mark)

• Who, besides the two top QBs, came up big in their combine efforts? (15:46 mark) • What's it like to cover the NFL Combine up close? (20:04 mark) All this and more as part of the Shutdown Corner Podcast. Listen below, and while you're listening ...

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - For a guy who'd just lost the last Daytona 500 he'll likely ever run, Jeff Gordon sure looked like a man at peace.

The race had just ended. Some cars were parked out on pit road; others, like Gordon's mangled 24, were already being loaded onto their haulers. As fireworks sounded and race winner Joey Logano celebrated over in victory lane, other drivers walked from pit road back toward their haulers, some alone, some accompanied by a couple of autograph hounds or cameras. All wore a similar expression: exhaustion with more than a tinge of scowling frustration.

All except Gordon. Gordon, who towed a crowd in his wake that grew like an avalanche, wore an absolutely beatific smile.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Joey Logano, the kid who's had greatness predicted for him since he was 15, won the 57th running of the Daytona 500.

A frenetic final few laps as most of the 43-car field barreled around the 2.5-mile superspeedway three-wide, injected some life into what had been a snoozer for most of the first three-quarters of the race.

Justin Allgaier wrecked with three laps to go, setting up a two-lap sprint to the finish. They restarted with Logano in the lead, followed by Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson. Logano got a great restart, held off a late charge from Kevin Harvick (2nd) and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (3rd) before a wreck behind them on the final lap brought out a caution, ending the race.

For the 24-year-old Logano, it marked his first Daytona 500 win.

"I can't believe it," Logano said as he got out of his car, still gripping his steering wheel as he celebrated. "This is absolutely amazing. Daytona 500, oh my God. Are you kidding me? I was so nervous the whole race."

Gordon, who started on the pole and led the most laps, got caught in the final-lap accident. He finished 33rd.

The 1998 Daytona 500 marked the end of one of NASCAR's most ignoble streaks, that of Dale Earnhardt's winless run at the Great American Race. The very next year kicked off another such streak for another championship driver, one that runs right to, and through, today.

Tony Stewart has won three Sprint Cup championships. His 18 wins all-time at Daytona International Speedway rank second only to Earnhardt's 34. But in all those years, Stewart has never won the big one, never won the Daytona 500, and after an early-race incident on Sunday, he wouldn't win this year.

On Lap 43, Stewart's car got loose and he clipped the wall, then the cars of Ryan Blaney and Matt Kenseth. Stewart's car took the worst of it, hitting the wall hard enough to necessitate a new front hood. When Stewart finally returned to the track, he was 64 laps down.

Still, Stewart hasn't won a race since June 2013. And now, the one he wants most of all will have to wait until at least 2016.

____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - Kyle Busch suffered a compound fracture in his right leg, as well as a fractured left foot after a vicious late-race wreck at the Alert Today Florida 300 at Daytona International Speedway. He is out indefinitely.

Matt Crafton will replace him in Sunday's Daytona 500. Joe Gibbs Racing said an interim driver beyond Daytona has not been determined.

The accident, met with criticism from a number of drivers because it occured at a place on the track which did not have SAFER barriers, prompted an almost immediate response from track president Joie Chitwood, who pledged to wrap the track in the afforementioned soft walls immediately following Sunday's race.

"SAFER barriers should have been there tonight," Chitwood said. "We can't allow this again."

Construction crews created the lake in 1958 by excavating dirt to form the banks in turns 1-2 and 3-4. The lake, named for J. Saxton Lloyd, a local Daytona notable, served as a retention pond to prevent flooding in all but the most extreme circumstances. NASCAR founder Bill France ordered the lake stocked with 65,000 fish, and that’s where the legend of Lake Lloyd began.

If there’s a stationary object anywhere near a race track, eventually a driver will run into it, and the lake is no exception. Tommy Irwin was the first to put a car in the lake, the year after the track opened in 1960.